


Hijo De

by Thimblerig



Series: Musketeer Shorts [7]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Episode Tag, Episode: s03e04 The Queen’s Diamonds, Gen, Kink Meme, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-04
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 03:43:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7084306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thimblerig/pseuds/Thimblerig
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“Who have you told?”</em>
</p><p> <em>“You,” he said softly.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Some implied squick, but not beyond that already implied by the episode's back story regarding sex work.

Constance filled the tumbler with more fortified wine and slid it across the table. “And then what happened?” she asked.  
  
In the darkness of the mess Aramis took the glass with a flourish of his wrist and drained it in two gulps. “I told San-Pierre that I'd swear on any bible or relic around that it was I who murdered the stableman.”  
  
Furrows showed between Constance’s brows. Aramis smiled mirthlessly. “Then I explained that my motive would be jealousy over being jilted for his lordship himself. He was a pretty young thing, the dead man; I could have made that story convincing. And that… was a _little_ more scandal than San-Pierre was prepared to deal with. So we made a deal: the poor boy ‘died in an accident’ and he dowered Pauline a place in the convent of Bethune. I've been there,” he said distantly, “it's nice. The sisters are kind.” He chortled. “One of us joins the church after all.”  
  
He looked down at his hands, spread flat on the rough wood. “San-Pierre truly loved her, do you see? I helped him make a decision that would suit everyone in the long run, even the dead man, and if he wanted to wash himself after, well, men have suffered worse.”  
  
Constance pursed her lips. “Tell me about your mother,” she commanded, in that gentle yet brusque tone that worked on weepy cadets and Athos alike. And Aramis also, she saw, as his shoulders eased and a tiny smile curled his mouth.  
  
“Tall,” he said, sketching with a hand, “and graceful as a willow. Hair like a black river that I combed for her in the afternoons. She smelled of horehound - it was her favourite kind of pastille. They called her the Spanish Lady, mostly, but she was Josefina to her friends. Her accent was of Seville and her table manners were  _exquisite._  
  
"She was... popular. Among the other women as well," he added hurriedly. "She had the most amazing smile, as if she could see everything you were and loved you so much anyway, like a pitcher overflowing with water. As to the family that disowned her or the cock I squirted from...” He shrugged dismissively, and held out the glass. In the quiet of midnight, the glug of the wine pouring, and the quick faint rustle that must be a mouse were very loud.  
  
“My father, M’sieur d’Herblay, adopted me when I was ten or so, and took me out to the country, a lovely little place. I won't tell you how many years I… waited for the bill for that to come due. Wrongly,” he added flatly, “He was a gentleman who lived loving-kindness with every ounce of him and I am proud to have been his son for a little while.” He drained the glass again and wagged his finger solemnly. “So you see I was loved by both my parents, which is more than many get truly.”  
  
Aramis set the glass down with a thunk and sent it sliding across the table, cocking his head. “How old were you, Constance, when you married Bonacieux? If I may ask that?”  
  
She quirked her lips in a smile of her own. “Twenty-two.” She left the glass on the heavy table and took a swig from the bottle. “I think my parents would have changed their minds if I'd made a fuss, but… that's not what nice young girls of respectable families _do_ , Aramis.” He nodded in understanding. “And after that I just had to get on with it, didn't I? He wasn't a bad man, not really,” she said, a little plaintively, and, “I didn't think I was unhappy for most of it.”  
  
A creak in the cavernous room and they both startled. Constance glanced at the fire, where the last of the slow-burning wood collapsed on itself.  
  
“Who have you told?”  
  
“You,” he said softly. A tiny sigh escaped him. “Porthos, once, almost. But it didn't seem quite the time - he was telling me how his own mother died and...” His fingers worked on the grain of the table. “Now it's just one more secret for him to be angry about.”  
  
She covered his hands. “He would understand, I think.”  
  
Aramis stared at the single candle. “If _she_ knew," he said at last, “where her lover came from, would she want to wash herself, do you think?”  
  
Constance pursed her lips, then squeezed his wrist.  
  
“Good _night,_ Constance.”  
  
In the end she left him there, alone in the dying light.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Constance raised her head, proud as a lioness guarding a cub. “Let this one go,” she said, eyes glittering._
> 
> _“I do not believe I can.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somebody asked for what would happen if the others found out. A WHOLE LOT OF FEELINGS, that's what.

Constance turned into the hall and bounced, as if off a wall. Porthos stood there, frozen, two apples in one hand and a leg of roasted fowl in the other. Her eyes widened, then she seized his arm and pulled. It was like tugging on a mountain, then he softened and followed after, light on his feet as a cat.

In the open space of the garrison yard the big man hovered awkwardly, looking at the food in his hands as if it were going to bite him. He gave one of the apples to Constance, who tucked it in her pocket.

“I always thought,” he said, voice husky. He coughed and started again. “I always thought the secrets started with... her. Eight years we been in the army together, Constance. I dug a ball out of his thigh once, when we didn't trust the surgeon, did you know that? An’ he knows everything about me, everything that matters.”

She took a breath. “Porthos, it isn't -”

“No, I get it, I get it,” he said. “If you can pass, passing is what you do.” He huffed. “I used to eat half-rotten leavings for supper, and sometimes nothing,” he said, blinking hard, “but I never thought I'd been sold as a catamite, so I guess I'm ahead.”

_ “Who _ was sold as a catamite?” said Athos, peeling out of the shadows, pipe in hand, face thunderous.

_ “Nobody,”  _ Porthos and Constance both snapped.

“You do not speak of ‘nobody’,” he said, low and dangerous.

Constance raised her head, proud as a lioness guarding a cub. “Let this one go,” she said, eyes glittering.

“I do not believe I can.”

She laid a light hand on Porthos’ armoured sleeve.

Still soft, still dangerous, Athos warned, “Quartermaster.”

She stood even taller, straight as a queen in her high-collared dress. “Captain.”

“Nobody,” they heard behind them, and whirled.

Aramis set down the bottle in his hand with a tiny  _ clink,  _ and waved off Constance’s anguished look _. _ His gaze roved around them, Constance and Porthos and Athos, and to the side where d'Artagnan and one of the cadets, Brujon, as if prompted by an evil fairy, had just walked out of the stables with armfuls of tack. D'Artagnan, eyes wide, put one hand on the cadet’s shoulder and gripped. Aramis turned back to the Captain.

“You'll have a letter of resignation by morning. An you love me, you'll let it rest there.”

“Denied,” said Athos crisply, knuckles white where he gripped his pipe.

“Desertion, then,” said Aramis, smiling horribly. “How about a nice public whipping in the yard.  _ Whppstch.” _

“We'll speak of this again when you're sober,” said Athos, then, gentle as to a beaten child,  _ “Aramis.  _ This doesn't change anything.”

“No,” said Aramis, still smiling, “you've always had a regrettably accurate assessment of my character.”

Athos cursed.

“Did you speak to your wife like that?” Aramis called over his shoulder as he turned to go.

“I never used to think you were a quitter,” growled Porthos. Aramis kept walking. “Them monastery kids, did you just cut them off cold, too?” A shudder rippled through Aramis, then he reached the door to quarters, and disappeared.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh - why did I think Aramis was adopted? 
> 
> If he was conceived after his mother entered the brothel, how would they know paternity - wishful thinking or a strong family resemblance? (Though, if it were the father who had the Spanish heritage and looks, that also would have been an interesting bit of background.)
> 
> If he'd been conceived before and paternity was clear, that's a whole barrel of squick in the familial relations, and I didn't want to go there.
> 
> And, "My father meant me for the church," would have been unusual for an eldest or only son, especially with property to inherit, and he mentions no brothers. 
> 
> Hence, adoption to a decent man before Aramis hit a nubile age. She must have trusted d'Herblay a great deal.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Please,” he whispered, lowering his head._

Porthos found Aramis in their shared room, rapidly rolling up shirts and stuffing them into a satchel.

“That was Athos’ _Can I kill someone, would it help if I killed someone for you?_ face,” Porthos said dryly, sitting down on his bed. “You missed it the last coupla times so I'm pointing it out for future reference.”

Aramis looked up quizzically, then shook his head briefly, fishing under his own pillow for a little knife in a black leather sheath and tossing it in the bag.

“I was just -”

“Hungry, Porthos. Yes, I know.” Aramis shook his head wearily. “My fault for being careless, that's all. How much did you hear?”

“From the dead boy.”

“Then you'll understand why I plan to leave before things get... stabby.”

“I was planning on sitting on you until you stopped being an idiot, as happens.”

A smile flickered on Aramis’ lips. “The trumpets may sound, first.”

“You taught me how to read, you miserable romantic bastard. _I would have understood._ ”

Aramis’ hands stilled. “You would have,” he said softly. He leaned forward suddenly and traced his thumb down the scar on Porthos’ eyelid. “You'll be a general one day,” he said. “I promise you. You wear everything that you are on your face and they can't but see it. And you rise.”  

Porthos cursed. “You're evading again.”

Another smile flickered. "Perhaps I am. Do you know the last words my mother said to me? 'Forget this place. Forget where you came from. Forget you ever had a mother.'" He reached out with his fingers as if catching at a tassel of flying hair.

"And since when have you ever followed orders?"

Flicker. “I suppose not." He cocked his head, eyes fey. "The Moon-and-Venus was a reputable house, Porthos; they always tucked the littles up out of sight when the parlour was open to callers. You know me, though - I never could sleep all through the night. Curious as a button.”

“You were just a kid,” answered Porthos, “you can't have known what you were listening to...” Aramis was silent. “... saw.”

“She was well-known among the ecclesiastical crowd,” Aramis added, eyes sliding to the side. "A hooker that can discourse in Latin: delicious." He stood suddenly and ran his fingers over the little books that had already begun to overflow their shelf, and picked out three, briskly wrapping them in a cloth and stowing them with his clothes.

He opened his writing case and threw three close-written pages at Porthos. “Post these for me, will you?” They were a letter addressed to a Luc Beauchamp of Douai Monastery, containing part of a rambling, whimsical children's tale. Porthos flipped a page to a scratchy doodle of d'Artagnan standing at attention beside a row of staked beanstalks and tossed them down. “Do it yourself when it's finished,” he snarled.  

He caught Aramis’ shoulder before he reached the doorway. “It was never your cock that got you in trouble,” he said, looping his other arm around and placing his hand on his friend’s chest, where the jacket swung open and the tapes of his shirt hung loose, and the hairs stuck to the skin with cold, slick sweat. “It was this,” he explained softly.

Aramis sighed minutely and Porthos thought that he almost had him, thought he'd turn in his arms, and collapse, and cry on his shoulder like a sensible person. And Porthos could do that. He had strong shoulders, he could carry anything if he had to, even being the second-best friend, always the last to know. He could carry that, if Aramis would stay. But then the other’s jaw tightened. “Trouble is trouble,” he said flatly. He pulled against Porthos’ gentle grip. “Please,” he whispered, lowering his head. “Please let me go.”

Porthos' hands tightened, then released. "When your head's on straight..." Aramis nodded.

He waited a count of thirty after his friend was out of sight, then padded after.

**

The darkened yard was blessedly silent as Aramis slunk through it, satchel over his shoulder. But he paused at the exit. “The apprentice sends an apprentice of his own,” Aramis said lightly. “How very droll.” 

Brujon stood in the middle of the garrison gateway, painted in moonlight and shadows, his straight eyebrows and clipped hair very dark against the whiteness of his clean cut face, mouth flat and determined. “Sir,” he said, formal and severe, “if my presence an hour ago has any bearing on your current course of action, I beg you to discount it. I would sooner slit my own tongue than...”

Aramis shook his head wearily. “It's not about you.” He stepped to the side and Brujon stepped with him, blocking the road.

“No. Sir. Please don't. All for one, isn't that so?”

“I thrust my own head through a noose earlier today,” said Aramis conversationally. “I feel I should warn you that my current notions of acceptable violence are a little… flexible. Cadet. Get out of my way.”

Brujon skated again to the side to catch Aramis’ swerve and held up one hand, fine white fingers outstretched. “Please,” he whispered, lowering his head. “Please stay.”

 _“Why?”_ wailed Aramis, voice cracking.

“Because I thought I was the only one.”

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: "...Give me something about the others finding out about Aramis growing up in a brothel.  
> Make him talk(/think) about his time there.  
> How bad was it for his mother?..."
> 
> Full prompt here: https://bbcmusketeerskink.dreamwidth.org/2753.html?thread=3760065#cmt3760065
> 
> Also, I personally needed some resolution for Pauline, so.


End file.
